Flush toilet
Retrete con cisterna de descarga (Ajax)
- Date
- 1596 · confidence high
- Place
- Kelston, Somerset, England
- Credited to
- Sir John Harington (A New Discourse of a Stale Subject, called the Metamorphosis of Ajax)
- People
- 👤 John Harington1560–1612
- Field
- Tools
What it is
A toilet with a water cistern, a flush valve and a bowl emptying into a cesspit, installed at Harington's house and at Richmond for Elizabeth I. It preceded by two centuries the hydraulic trap that made it practical.
It did not catch on, owing to the lack of running water and sewers.
What it led to
- The concept of domestic sanitation by water flushing
- Cummings's S-trap (1775) and Bramah's flush toilet (1778)
- 19th-century urban sanitation
Built on
- Roman and Mohenjo-daro water-flushed latrines
- Lead plumbing
- Pump valves
Made possible
- London main drainage system1858-1865
- Cummings and Bramah's valve water closet